A proud unapologetic Black trans woman speaking truth to power and discussing the world around her since 2006

Saturday, May 20, 2017

Assigned Male Cartoonist Attacked By Online Haters

I've loved the online webcomic Assigned Male ever since I stumbled across it during one of my web searching forays for interesting things to write about.

I wrote about its importance to our community, and even had the pleasure of meeting its lovely artist Sophie Labelle in the vendors area during last year's Philadelphia Trans Health Conference.

But what I'm not happy to hear is that haters have been sending Labelle death threats, doxxed her and hackers in a coordinated attack were successful in temporarily taking down her Facebook website with over three years of Assigned Male strips on it.

And this is happening during a week in which the Canadian Senate was debating Bill C-16, the Trans Rights Act in a Senate committee

Fortunately she'd backed up her work and the Facebook site is now back up online, but it forced her to cancel a book tour appearance in Halifax.

Labelle's book is entitled Dating Tips For Trans and Queer Weirdos, and is a 28 page one that explores the relationship between Ciel and Eirikur, two of the Assigned Male comic characters.

The book tour has two more stops in Quebec City on May 25 and Vancouver on June 1.

Labelle says in a Toronto Star interview that she is more determined than ever to not let the haters win and give it the best she's got.

That's wonderful to hear because the comic stip is important to our trans kids. They need to see positive representations of themselves in the comic world, and I agree with Sophie, that's one of the reasons why the haters came after your strip.

But it's nice to know that your book tour will not only continue, but we'll see more of the Assigned Male adventures of Stephanie and her friends. .

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About The TransGriot

Monica Roberts, AKA the TransGriot (Gree-oh) is a native Houstonian, GLAAD award nominated blogger, writer, and award winning trans human rights advocate. She's the founding editor of TransGriot, and her writing has appeared at the Bilerico Project, Ebony.com, The Huffington Post and the Advocate.
She works to foster understanding and acceptance of trans people inside and outside communities of color and was recently honored with the Virginia Prince Transgender Pioneer Award

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The TransGriot blog's mission is to become the griot of our community. I will introduce you to and talk about your African descended trans brothers and trans sisters across the Diaspora, reclaim and document our chocolate flavored trans history, speak truth to power, comment on the things that impact our trans community from an Afrocentric perspective and enlighten you about the general things that go on around me and in the communities that I am a member of.

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